0-Carb (Javelin Amarone) No Carbon Fiber - 6.35kg (14lb)

[2lo8]

The part I'm most curious about for sure is the fork. For pretty much everything else on the list there are fairly high-end non-carbon options, but a good 1 1/8 fork would be tough. Who makes it?

It's an awful boat anchor of a fork. It's no good at all.

Hahah should have read your blog for the jl seat clamp had one snap on me. I got a kcnc instead

That's the hope, there's not a ton of information on the cheap stuff. Some of it is good and light as advertised. Some of it is junk.

[2lo8]

Headset - 50g


Nothing to say, it's a FSA Orbit IS-2 that came with the frame, except I split the crown race because that makes it easier to install. If for some reason you're replacing forks and need a new crown race, remember to buy an aluminum one, not a steel one, as there's maybe 6-7g difference.

Handlebars - 242g


By Oval, fairly light weight, but not the lightest. I prefer a 38cm bar and many of the lighter bars only come in 40cm. I actually prefer a 38cm flared bars like FSA, but I wasn't about to pay $40 more for a 40g heavier bar. The 38cm FSA wing pro, their lightest alloy model comes in at 285g, although I can imagine the gloss white paint adds some grams.

Spacers - 11g


The picture says 18g for 10, right now I have 6 because I haven't commit to a bar height yet. These are made from plastic, and are basically as light as a non-ribbed carbon spacer, which is fine because they just deal with compression loads. I can't really say they're much cheaper than generic carbon spacers though.

[2lo8]

I got some new rubber so I took off the wheels:

1250g including 7g(?) of veloplugs.

Tires - 362g (181g ea)

These ended up being lighter and cheaper than Pro4 SC's, because I guess they're clearing them out for the new Michelin Power line. I could have gotten the Pro4 Comp limited for even lower weight, but those have no flat protection. Pro4 Comps have the same flat protection and tread as Pro4 SCs, making them a fairly practical tire. They just have a suppler, lighter casing, which also seems a little narrower, as the tires measure closer to 22mm, where many other Michelin tires run wide. Despite Bibendum being white, these tires are just plain black. I like Michelin because they actually make tires for everything, like Continental does, except unlike Continental, Michelin makes slicks without the silly tread pattern that does nothing.

I'm not going to get into the history of tires, because Michelin is one of the oldest tire companies, almost as old as the pneumatic tire. However, it's worth noting, over a century ago, Michelin got into the tire business because a cyclist rolled up to their shop with a flat, and because of their difficulty with the glued on tubular, invented the first removable tire that wasn't glued on which had a separate inner tube for ease of fixing flats and replacement. My Michelin tires are also not glued on and have inner tubes for the same reasons. The difference is back then clincher rims actually clinched the tire bead.

Tubes 124g (62g ea)

If you don't sit around weighing your tubes for the lightest tubes in your collection, can you really call yourself a weight weenie? These are Forte Lite tubes that I buy in bulk when they're on sale, so they come in less than $4 each. They're advertised as 67g, but seem to consistently come in a few grams lighter, lighter than some latex tubes even. These came in at 62g.

[2lo8]

Stem - 99g

It's a Hylix 100mm stem with Ti bolts. The only reason to buy this stem is because sometimes you can get it for the same price a Ti stem bolts, which save around 10g. It's junk, it's poorly made, poorly machined, the clamp overbored, the bottom face is not flat. It will be replaced with a UNO stem sooner or later when I decide on stem length, which should end up being pretty much the same weight after installing Ti bolts.

Bar tape - 23g

This is that cheap bar tape found on eBay for $2. It weighs anywhere from 20g-40g per pair. I had one roll for 10g tape, but I think I used the other roll for taping up some aerobars or something. I ended up using ones that were 27g. I may order a few more rolls to see if I can get some more 10g ones. The left over scraps were 4g, bringing it down to 23g and some electrical tape. It doesn't have any adhesive backing, so I put a very loose wrap of double sided cellophane tape on the bars to prevent creep.

Bar Plugs - 4g

A few cents worth of plastic tube plugs, I think it was 10 for $2 or so, and a little trimming with a knife gets me these 4g bar end plugs, on par with the Schmolkes, and other fancy carbon plugs, which replace the 7g silver plugs (it's technically not chrome, it's a coating of aluminum that has been sprayed on in liquid form) that come with the $2 tape with something matte black.

[2lo8]

M5 Bolts - 4g

I purchased the other style of fairing bolt, because it was only $2 for the set, which is both longer, and lighter because of the low profile button head. They do have one slight disadvantage, they will strip more easily because they take a 3mm hex, not a 4mm hex, and the fit was loose enough to use a 1/8" hex. One of them is cut down for the bottom bracket cable guide.

Chain catcher - 7g (w/ ti bolt)

Token chain catcher, because the SRAM one doesn't work with my braze-on adapter. 5g w/o bolt, 6g w/ aluminum bolt that came with it, but I decided to eat the 1g penalty for a little more security. The SRAM one got put on the bike that this came off of.

FD adapter - 18g (w/ ti bolt)

It costs all of $3 on eBay, not including the ti bolt, and is still one of the lighter options on the market. Ti bolt drops it from 20g to 18g. Seems to work just fine.

[2lo8]

Seatpost - 165g

Apparently, the parts on this bike looked high end so I decided to replace the Thomson with the $15 GUB. Very similar to a Thomson, except much cheaper, and a lot less guilt cutting one down. It's only 7g heavier than a Masterpiece when cut down to 240mm. Each additional centimeter removed is another 4g. The hardware is 5g lighter because it screws into aluminum barrels instead of steel ones, although they should be more than strong enough, lots of other designs thread directly into aluminum.

Seatpost Shim - 31g

Combined with the above seatpost, it comes out to 196g, saving me 4g over the Thomson, although I could have possibly just transferred the hardware. I suspect this combination with the plastic shim and and the skinnier seatpost will be a bit more comfortable, and I have fewer reservations of cutting off a couple more centimeters. The fact that it's plastic means it's lighter than an aluminum and might even add a bit of comfort.

Small ring - 28g

The SRAM 34t ring, which seems to be common to most of their cranks, is actually one of the lighter 34t rings, even when compared to some weight weenie options. It's also one of the cheaper ones.

Big ring - 112g

This is the newer version of the 10s 50t ring but the older style ones with the cut outs are actually lighter. The 11s is even heavier from my recollection. I feel the SRAM 50t shifts poorly because of the timing of the pins. If I remember correctly, there are 4 pins, clustered in two sets of pairs. The problem is one pair catches outer links, the other pair catches inner links, which is somewhat inexplicable design. It basically means there's only one spot for the pins to catch the chain during a rotation. If the first pin drops the chain, the second pin is too close to act as a backup. The second pin only works if for some reason the first pin doesn't pick up, but the second pin does, like if you manage to time your shift right after the first pin. Basically the first pin handles about 340 degrees of crank rotation, the second handles about 20 degrees.

AA Battery - 15g

Details. This is the lithium AA cell. It saves 10g over an alkaline cell, lasts longer and is guaranteed against leaks. I did consider getting an AAA cell and using an AAA-AA adapter, but that would only save me a few more grams but not last as long. It should about break even in cost when it comes to mAh/$.

[2lo8]

Frame - 987g

The frame is a NOS 2005 Javelin Amarone. Made for only one year, because they cost more to make than carbon frames. The carbon frame that replaced this model actually ended up being heavier. Even though the frame is over a decade old, it still gives frames like the CAADs a run for their money when it comes to weight, weighing in at under a kilo. Being made from Dedacciai U2, it is certainly not heavy metal. Dedacciai called it the third metal, but my periodic table tells me that's lithium or potassium. I'm pretty sure it's aluminum, and the other two metals implied are steel and titanium. This short lived generation of sub-kilo aluminum frames has an almost mythical status, very expensive, made only for a short time, exceptionally rare, and quickly displaced by low end Chinese carbon frames. Even the most advanced aluminum frames today like the CAAD12 come in around 100g heavier. Feathery light.

Hanger and BB guide - 16g

For some inexplicable reason I included the BB guide bolt, but it doesn't really make much of a difference.

Fork - 552g

The pièce de résistance. This may be the reason why this may very well be the lightest non-carbon road bike. I think it's also the reason no one will probably bother to try and build a lighter non-carbon bike. This piece of junk. It was taken from an aluminum fixie and difficult to get my hands on. Made from aluminum it is awful and a boat anchor. It weighs in ~275g more than the carbon fork I have for this bike. The picture says 593g. I cut off 41g. Quite possibly the worse weight weenie upgrade ever.

[2lo8]

Comes in at 6.7kg as pictured. Not even my ballast can make it UCI legal.

All in all, this was a fairly eclectic and unconventional build. There's not too many weight weenie bikes that don't have a spec of carbon fiber on them. It also used a number of cheap, even low-end generic parts, and attempted to not trade off too much practicality and functionality for weight, although every component has been carefully considered.

• Weighed with 2 bottle cages, pedals, computer and sensors
• Options such as a power meter, chain catcher and QRs
• Base level steel consumables
• Clinchers and butyl tubes
• Full 2x11 drivetrain

On my to do list:

• Swap chainrings, I have some lighter chainrings, 48t and 50t that are both 89g, which will save me another 23g or put on Q-rings which will weight around the same. I will most likely go with 48t for now because that's my preference.
• Get some road pedals, need to find some cheap speedplays to tune and save 30g, or some Ti XPEDO Thrust 7s and save 5g
• Cut the steerer and save 13g and remove spacers for another 11g, for another 24g weight loss
• Find some KCNC C7s, the CB1 works, but even with the alloy rims, salmon pads, compressionless housing, and lever reach reduced, it's not quite there trying to come to a complete stop on the -15% stuff
• Titanium hardware for the Thomson or trimming some more off the GUB, should net an extra 5-10g of weight reduction
• Replace the piece of junk stem with an UNO, weight should stay the same
• Buy more bar tapes, if I can get a 20g set, that should lose around 6g

After doing that and another upgrade or two, I should be able to get down to 6.6kg, but at that point I might put XR-270 wheels on it, since they are a bit stiffer and a little more aero.

[Grinley]

That's a really cool, unique build. Very impressive to be able to get below the UCI limit with no carbon whatsoever. I appreciate all the work you put into expounding on each component and why you chose it. It sort of seems like the ultimate sleeper bike. At first glance it may not look like anything too special but it's probably lighter than most the bikes out on any group ride. Congratulations!

[istigatrice]

Very impressive! Would you consider putting a full carbon fork on it? Might get 6.4kg...

[craciunptr]

Looks great, very unusual build! You could shave more grams on the seatpost and saddle kcnc ti8000 and a slr with ti rails?

[2lo8]

That's a really cool, unique build. Very impressive to be able to get below the UCI limit with no carbon whatsoever. I appreciate all the work you put into expounding on each component and why you chose it. It sort of seems like the ultimate sleeper bike. At first glance it may not look like anything too special but it's probably lighter than most the bikes out on any group ride. Congratulations!

Indeed, I'd guess most people would think it's a 20ish pound (~9kg) bike at first glance and not realize it doesn't have a carbon fork.

Very impressive! Would you consider putting a full carbon fork on it? Might get 6.4kg...

Yes, it came with a carbon fork. Cut down for the same 30mm of spacers, it is 283g from memory, saving 279g, almost half the weight of the aluminum fork. With the 23g from the lighter chainring, and trimming the steerer some more, it would be 6.4kg. Probably not the weight most people would expect at a glance. It won't happen until I get a new stem though, I'm not happy with the quality of the Hylix, and don't want to put it on a carbon steerer.

I do find some amusement however, in the fact that you don't need any carbon fiber to get below the UCI limit. It does give the weight limit some context.

Looks great, very unusual build! You could shave more grams on the seatpost and saddle kcnc ti8000 and a slr with ti rails?

$90 is a lot of money to take to the hacksaw for me. I can't even afford proper (weight weenie) road pedals at the moment. That's what I like about the GUB, no regrets cutting a $15 seatpost down to size. Even though the Thomson is nominally a $100 seatpost, I bought it on a whim for less than $20 because it was second hand, it was an unusual 32.4mm size, and it had already been cut down by the previous owner, so I had no regrets cutting it down some more. Still it looks like a ~50g potential weight savings, so worth looking into finding a second hand one.

As far as the SLR, I looked into those. The non-carbon solid titanium ones are 185g, so no weight savings there, the lighter ones with with hollow rails are 30% carbon fiber bases.

[2lo8]

Small update. 6675g with the new-old ring. I've also compiled the build on my blog. I added some stuff, removed some stuff, reordered things.
https://2lo8.wordpress.com/my-non-carbon-bike-6-7kg/




I'm using the 48t ring purely out of personal preference. There's no weight difference between it and the 50t ring.

[tmr5555]

not much info on the rockbros saddle on teh interwebs!

[craciunptr]

Will you cut the steerer shorter? that should save another dead 20 grams?